


Soul on Fire

by pixie_rings



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: M/M, The Favour, The Red Stripe of Doom, shitty Les Miserables references
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 05:54:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4423937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixie_rings/pseuds/pixie_rings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Red is the colour of desire, a world about to dawn, and it is their colour.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Soul on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt number three: _Choose ‘their colors’ and write about them_

_Red – the Favour_

He'd had to improvise. He was good at that. He'd grabbed the first red cloth thing to hand and torn a strip out of it, taking Fenris's hand. He paused, rigid, frozen by a maelstrom of sudden, horrible thoughts: _Was this too possessive? Was it welcome? Would it trigger any memories?_ He swallowed.

“Is this all right?” he asked, licking his lips nervously. Fenris looked at him from under lazy eyelids, a slow smile inching its way along his lips. He looked like a satisfied cat, and it made Hawke's heart leap in his chest like the ridiculous sop he was. Languidly, Fenris slid the soft fabric from Hawke's fingers. He wound it around his wrist, and Hawke followed his movements, his mouth watering. Fenris's wrists, the curl of the markings around them, the weave of red between his long fingers...

Fenris raised his wrist to Hawke, still smiling. “You know what to do,” he said. Swallowing again, Hawke reached up with fingers that felt like unwieldy sausages and fumbled as he tied off the cloth, not too tight, just snug enough to not slip. That slim, dark hand then cupped Hawke's cheek and Hawke closed his eyes in reverence of the touch. He turned, slightly, just enough to kiss the silken fabric now tied around Fenris's wrist.

“A favour,” Fenris murmured, chuckling. “How quaint.”

Hawke opened his eyes and grinned. “ _Quaint_? I was hoping for _romantic_.”

That was enough to make Fenris laugh, that low, throaty chuckle that made Hawke's heart soar like a bird, and Hawke dove at him, kissing him, pulling him close.

.

“What's _that_?” Isabela's voice was full of mischievous curiosity.

“What's what?” Fenris asked testily. He'd been like that lately, nettlesome, curt, laughing less than he used to. Except with Hawke. With Hawke, he was just... distant. For every step he'd taken forward, he'd taken four back. Gone was the Fenris who'd been slowly coming out from behind his wall of spikes, gone was the Fenris who laughed and flirted. He was replaced by the fearful Fenris of first meetings, and perhaps... perhaps it was even _worse_.

Hawke didn't turn around – Maker knew it would be obvious and even though that was himself to a T he wouldn't bloody do it, he wasn't _that_ unsubtle – but he kept a weather ear open.

“ _That_ ,” Isabela said, and there was a clink of metal that informed Hawke she'd made a grab for Fenris. Which meant...

“It is none of your business.” Fenris's voice had gone from annoyance to cold anger, and Hawke now knew what this was all about.

“You're no fun,” she said, sighing.

“Right, we're stopping for the night!” Hawke barked, heading the argument off before it could even start. That happened when you came back from Sundermount, you never got back in time for dinner. And you usually argued, as well.

He dealt with the campfire as Fenris set up bedrolls and Anders saw to the dinner – Isabela, as usual, did nothing – but he was distracted. So distracted, in fact, that Anders squawked at him.

“Hawke, don't burn it!”

Hawke turned and yelped, trying to calm the fire down before it surged too high and burnt the meat to a crisp.

“Sorry! Sorry!”

Isabela burst out laughing, her cackles rolling around the little secluded niche they'd found at the foot of the mountain, but that wasn't what Hawke noticed. Beyond her, finishing his work, Fenris hid a smile with his hand, and around that hand's wrist was a red piece of cloth, and it was enough to make Hawke _ache_.

After dinner, once the stars were fully out and the lots for watches had been drawn, Hawke found he couldn't sleep. Fenris had taken first watch, and he was sitting on a boulder, not far, crowned with the stars around his snowy-white head.

Hawke rose, making just enough noise so as not to surprise the elf, and went and sat near him – not too near. It was an intimacy that might not ever return, and the thought made Hawke a little sick.

“Hey,” he said. Fenris looked at him, and Hawke could see his eyes, glowing green in the dark. Their gaze gave him an odd thrill, it always did, it reminded Hawke that Fenris was something untameable.

“Hawke,” Fenris said, and Hawke couldn't even read his tone, it was so carefully neutral.

“I see you still have it,” Hawke murmured, and Fenris held his wrist to his chest, curling in on himself, protective. 

“I... if you do not want me to wear it anymore...” His words were carefully chosen, formal yet casual, trying to pretend he didn't care one way or another, but his movements said otherwise. Hawke winced. As if he'd ever take it away, not when it was the last thing that held them together.

“No, no, I do, I...” He swallowed, running a hand through his hair. “I want you to keep wearing it as long as you want.” _For forever_ , he didn't say. He was silent for a long moment that dragged on, filled only with oblivious crickets and the fire's dying crackles. Hawke finally stood.

“It lets me know I'm still here,” he said, tapping his chest where his heart would be. And he left Fenris be, not daring to look back at his beloved, awash with the stars.

.

He'd never dreamt a reunion would be this sweet: it was like he hadn't touched Fenris for a _thousand_ years, not just three. Three too many, of course, but... thank the Maker it wasn't any longer.

Fenris gasped beneath him, arching back as Hawke drove home, fingers clenching in the sheets.

“H-Haw-” he moaned hoarsely. Hawke lowered his head, licked across lyrium-infused, salt-slick shoulder-blades, threaded his fingers with Fenris's as he thrust again, drawing it out. Cloth brushed his inner wrist, burning with body heat and damp with sweat, and Hawke groaned as Fenris took him in again, tight around him, _open_ and _willing_ and everything he'd needed and yearned for for so long. It was like coming home again.

Fenris came, shuddering underneath him, Hawke's name on his lips, and Hawke followed, muffling his cries with Fenris's skin, pressed as deep as he could go, emptying himself inside the other man.

Fenris gasped for breath, rolling over and reaching up to run his hands through his sweat-drenched hair. Hawke panted, arms trembling, above Fenris, gazing down at him, in awe. Fenris was wrung out, languid and well-fucked, and Hawke almost couldn't breathe with it. He felt like crying, the vision was so glorious, almost religious in its perfection. Oh, Maker, was he even hearing himself? He sounded ridiculous, but it made so much sense to think of Fenris in words that bordered on blasphemy, he was practically divine.

Fenris reached up, smiling gently, and ran a hand over Hawke's cheek. He felt cloth brush his skin, and he closed his eyes, overwhelmed.

“You still have it,” he said, almost incredulous. Fenris sighed.

“I could never get rid of it,” he murmured. “It ties me to you.”

Hawke opened his eyes, practically beaming, and Fenris laughed, something joyous and pure and Hawke hadn't realised how much he'd _needed_ to hear that again. He let himself fall to the side and dragged Fenris closer, laughing as well, burying his face in the elf's neck, and he was sure that the closest thing to what he was feeling was unending happiness. He felt like bottled sunshine uncorked.

“Hawke, your beard,” Fenris protested, but he was still laughing, tugging Hawke as close as possible, and literally no moment could have been more perfect.

_Red – the Warpaint_

“You're frowning at me,” Hawke said warily. “I haven't done anything to warrant frowning. I'm becoming worried. My anxiety levels are rising. Should I be worried?”

Fenris shook his head. He was slightly buzzed from alcohol and the novelty of renewed... whatever they had, and the Hanged Man's buzz of chatter was easily drowned out by Hawke's presence that drew him in like a particularly besotted moth to a very bright and boisterous flame.

“This,” he said, slightly irritated, and he reached over to press a finger to the bridge of Hawke's nose. “Why?”

Hawke jerked back slightly, wary of Fenris's gauntleted finger, and wriggled his nose like a rabbit. “The warpaint?”

“Yes,” Fenris said, his frown deepening.

“Y'know, Hawke, I want to hear that tale too,” Varric said, distracted from his conversation with Anders in favour of Hawke's questionable taste in facial adornments. Aveline hummed.

“You've never told me that one, Hawke...”

Hawke broke into a grin, and a sly one at that.

“Oh, well, once upon a time, when both Cat and I were younger...”

Aveline snorted. “Mabari kaddis?” she asked in disbelief. Both Anders and Varric started laughing and Hawke joined in. But Fenris stayed quiet.

It wasn't until they were home ( _home_... _Hawke's_ home, yes, but it was beginning to feel like home to Fenris as well), and Hawke was dragging off the Champion's armour that Fenris spoke up. The fresh night air had sobered him, and he knew that Mabari kaddis was far-fetched, even for Hawke.

“Are you going to tell me the real reason?” he asked, stripped of his own armour and patiently waiting by the bedpost. Hawke stilled, undershirt half-off, showing off his collections of scars across the pale spread of his back in the candlelight. Fenris's hands itched, longing to touch, but he folded his arms instead.

“The real reason?” Hawke echoed.

“Indeed. You can fool the mage and Aveline, you might even fool _Varric_ , but I know you, Garrett Hawke.”

Hawke dumped his shirt on the floor with little ceremony and turned, dark-haired chest bare and arms rippling as he rubbed the back of his head.

“Well...”

He sat on the bed, heavily, and rubbed his face. He looked weary, all of a sudden, weary of life and the hand it had dealt him. No matter how many times he bluffed, it was still a miserable set of cards. Fenris sat beside him, close enough to feel the warmth of his skin.

“It started with Father,” Hawke murmured. He reached up and touched the paint on his cheek, staring off into the distance, at memories Fenris could not see. “Father... he was part Chasind, you know. My grandmother, as far as I know. This is the mourning sign, the blood of your fallen for the world to see, and you wear it for as long as it takes the wounds to heal. Bethany and Carver were too young when Father died, and Mother already had her own rituals, so... so I wore it. I just never ended up _stopping_ , did I? It was for Father, and then it was for Bethany, and then Mother...” His voice shook, and he dropped his hand from his face, clenched it into a trembling fist. “Perhaps it's for Carver too, he's as good as lost, wearing that armour...”

Fenris reached over, pressed himself to Hawke's side, kissed his bare shoulder. Hawke placed his hand on Fenris's, held it, squeezed gently.

“It's become part of me, I don't think I could ever stop wearing it.”

“Then don't,” Fenris murmured. “If it holds their memory, then keep it.”

Hawke smiled, soft and slightly bitter. “Well, it'll still be here for a while yet.”

Gently, Fenris took Hawke's chin and tilted his face, to look him in the eye. He gently ran a finger across the bridge of Hawke's nose, following the red, tracing its shape. “For as long as you need,” he said. Hawke's smile lost its bitterness, and he pressed his forehead to Fenris's.

“Thank you.”


End file.
